Sidney Chambers and The Dangers of Temptation (9 page)

‘It’s the feminine wiles I’m worried about. I’m not entirely sure what I’m in for. What’s marriage like? Is there anything I should know?’

‘This is not something that’s easy to talk about, Malcolm, especially here. All I can say is that if your love is tender and considerate and sometimes forgiving then you won’t go far wrong. It’s a matter of mutual compassion. Do you think you understand Helena?’

‘She’s a complex creature.’

‘She’s about to be your wife. You should know her pretty well by now.’

‘But do you
understand
Hildegard, Sidney? How much should a man know the woman he is going to marry and how much should be left to discover? Sometimes I think it’s like half-opening a present, guessing what it’s going to be and finding that it’s something entirely different.’

‘Then I look forward to being unwrapped.’

Helena had arrived in the pub, approached Malcolm from behind and put her arms around his neck. She was wearing a
white smock with Jackie O sunglasses perched on her head. Neither of the men had seen her but there was a raucous jeer from the cricketers to her left.

After buying the couple drinks and talking about the arrangements for the wedding rehearsal, Sidney dared to switch the subject and ask about her sister.

‘You’ve heard already?’

‘Geordie told me.’

‘We have to stop my mother finding out about the necklace . . .’

‘She’s that formidable?’

‘Will you talk to Olivia, Sidney?’

‘If you think it will help.’

‘Fortunately her boyfriend is in Corpus. That gives you an excuse.’

‘Now I am no longer the Vicar of Grantchester I do not have so much access to the college.’

‘I am sure you can find a reason.’

‘What do you have so far?’

‘Olivia’s twenty-one and she’s what you might call a free spirit. She’s always threatening to drop out and go and live in some godforsaken ashram, so I think Mummy and Daddy just kept bribing her to finish her degree. They paid for a party, to which they weren’t even invited, and Mummy lent her the necklace for the May Balls.’

‘She’s going to more than one?’

‘She could go to them all. She’s very in demand, my sister, as you’ll see. She combines beauty with availability. If her degree was in flirting, she’d get a first.’

‘But it’s not.’

‘No, it’s in English. I think that’s almost as easy. You end up studying books that most educated people are supposed to read anyway. But that’s by the by. Mummy told Olivia that she was only supposed to wear the necklace to the May Balls but my sister couldn’t resist showing it off at some ludicrous drinks party where they all got completely smashed. Now she can’t remember a thing. Sometimes she says the drinks must have been spiked. At others she blames one of her many boyfriends. The one thing she isn’t prepared to do, it seems, is to accept any responsibility herself.’

‘She’s not upset?’

‘She’s attempting a casual bravado. At least the whole disaster has happened after finals. She’s got no excuse if she’s messed them up.’

‘I suppose I should applaud your sense of priority.’

‘Don’t be pompous, Sidney. I’m annoyed with her more than anything else. Olivia could have been killed. Instead, she’s lost one of Mummy’s most valuable pieces of jewellery. I could kill her myself, I’m so annoyed.’

‘You’re keeping it out of the papers?’

‘The jewellery but not the cows. My colleagues are on to all that. You can imagine the fun they’re having. Anyone would think that they had invented the art of alliteration.
Meadows May Week Mayhem. Cow Carnage. Terror Trampling
.’

‘Have they interviewed your sister yet?’

‘I’ve told them they can’t. A friend of hers has piped up instead. She was near enough to the drama at the time and used to go out with the victim. That should be enough. They love a girlfriend angle and her picture will help the story. I’m sure Emily can look appropriately distraught. One of the boys
has already told me she’s “an absolute corker”. That was helpful, I must say.’

‘She’s a friend?’

‘Of Olivia’s, but she won’t mention her. We want the cow story and Emily and Richard to take all the attention. Daddy’s certain to read about it and we just need to make sure that he doesn’t feel duty-bound to tell my mother. If she finds out, she’ll either phone Newnham to ask what the hell’s going on, which will be easy enough because she’s an old girl, or she’ll take the next train up, check that Olivia’s all right, and then ask where the bloody necklace is.’

‘What’s it like?’

‘It’s a single large sapphire, but very rare: cornflower blue from Ceylon. It was fashioned into a pear shape and then set within what they call a “sparkling halo” of small mine-cut diamonds.’

‘A “sparkling halo”?’

‘Don’t go all ecclesiastical, Sidney. It’s Victorian. It’s been in the family for almost a hundred years.’

‘Why didn’t you have it? You’re the eldest.’

‘Mummy said I didn’t have the right colouring. Olivia’s the one with the bright-blue eyes. Besides, it was only a loan.’

‘I don’t suppose . . .’

‘She could have pretended to lose it in order to hang on to it? I don’t think you know my mother.’

‘And you didn’t mind the favouritism?’

‘They gave me a coral teardrop for my twenty-first. It was supposed to set off my hair. I hated it because, as you may remember from when we first met, I am prone to spots. It looked like a skin complaint. I couldn’t exchange it fast enough.’

Malcolm interrupted to get out a gallant ‘you have perfect skin, my darling’ but Helena was having none of it. ‘Happiness certainly improves it; but this whole business with my sister is still going to bring me out in a rash.’

Sidney resumed his inquisition. ‘And do you know what Olivia was doing before she discovered that she had lost the necklace?’

‘I am afraid so.’

‘Would you like to tell me?’

‘I think she was having a bit of fun.’

Malcolm elucidated. ‘Doing what students do in May Week.’

‘With a boyfriend?’

‘Alexander,’ said Helena. ‘The one that wasn’t trampled.’

‘You mean that the victim of the stampede was also her boyfriend?’

‘I think she had a bit of history with him too. You know what it’s like these days. one man is never enough for some people. Good vibrations and all that!’

‘And so could the necklace have been pulled off in a moment of passion? It may have fallen where they lay.’

‘I’ve already asked. They say they went back to the spot to look for it. It was far enough from the cows not to have been trampled by them. They were down by the river. In a dingly dell. Olivia called it their very own hobbit-hole. I’ve always hated Tolkien. But, anyway, they went back and necklace was there none.’

‘And you don’t suppose her boyfriend could have pocketed it in the ensuing chaos?’

‘I suppose he could have done. You’ll have to ask him. I’ve told Olivia that you’ll sort it out if Geordie can’t.’

‘I’m not sure about that.’

‘I’ve given you a very good write-up. And you know Mummy is a good friend of Henry Richmond?’

‘I thought you were trying to keep your mother out of this?’

‘I am but if she
does
get to hear of it, and you were unable to help us, then you wouldn’t want Amanda finding out that you are mortal after all, would you?’

‘Amanda is well aware of my failings, as am I.’

‘Don’t let us down, Sidney. We’re relying on you.’

‘But if it wasn’t the boyfriend then it could have been anyone. And the Meadows are vast.’

‘Who knows them better than you? You could take Byron. Didn’t he find some kind of axe last time he was here?’

‘He did.’

‘There you are then.’

‘Lightning seldom strikes twice in the same place, Helena.’

‘It does where you’re concerned, Sidney. You’re our very own conductor, attracting heat wherever you stand.’

‘I’m not sure I like that idea.’

‘Yes you do. You positively crackle with electricity.’

‘I rather think you and Malcolm are the ones with the electricity,’ said Sidney.

‘Not if her mother’s got anything to do with it,’ his former curate replied.

It seemed appropriate to their conversation that the next time Sidney found himself in Grantchester he was caught in a storm and forced to take shelter by the willow trees in Long Meadow. It arrived more quickly than anticipated, the Cambridge-blue sky overrun by dark clouds and then merging to form a whitish
grey, before the rain fell and sounded like an orchestra tuning up; the smither turning into a gulching hail in under a minute, a burst of Beethoven before a slow diminuendo into a shatter that lasted far longer than Sidney thought it would; almost an hour.

Sheltering close by was a tall young man with long hair, dressed in a lacy shirt and velvet and brocade flares that had been bought from the fashionable London store Granny Takes a Trip. He was carrying a small microphone attached to a Grundig tape recorder. After he had hit the stop button he nodded; indicating that he was ready for conversation.

‘I wasn’t expecting the rain,’ he said. ‘But I like the sound. I’ve been here for days.’

‘Making recordings?’

‘I want to use nature musically; to see what silence is really like.’

‘I imagine there’s no such thing.’

‘Even when everything stops there’s still the sound of the water, the drone of hoverflies, a lark or a distant dog barking. I’m Roger.’

He held out a hand. Sidney took it and introduced himself, explaining that he used to be the Vicar of Grantchester.

‘You haven’t stopped, though? You’re still a clergyman. You haven’t been defrocked or anything like that?’

‘Not so far. I came back to see one of my parishioners. The farmer with the cows.’

‘The ones that attacked the students?’

‘Were you here at the time?’

‘I was the other side of the river,’ said Roger. ‘One of the girls came to talk to me. She wanted to know if I was spying on them.’

‘How did she get across?’

‘She stopped a punt. I was a bit scared of her at first. But she was all right when I told her I was in a band. That’s why I was doing the recording. It got much better after that. I even started to like her. She said she preferred jazz. I quite admired that. It’s not the kind of thing many people admit to. I told her she should have been born fifty years ago.’

‘What was the girl wearing?’ Sidney asked.

‘That’s kind of weird too. She was dressed as if it was the 1920s.’

‘Any jewellery?’

‘A silver band, I think. And something in her hair.’

‘Nothing blue?’

‘No, she wore green. She looked like she belonged in the trees. I told her that. Some people have an aura to them. Hers was clover green. She laughed when I said so. She had a nice smile. I’ve been thinking about laughter quite a lot; how we each have our own. You can be recognised or given away by enjoying yourself. It’s strange, don’t you think?’

‘Do you say this because the students were laughing?’

‘I suppose so. They were mucking about with the cows. I’m not surprised the animals got fed up.’

‘Did you see what happened?’ Sidney asked.

‘It was quite far away. The green girl had gone by then. She said she’d had enough of them. I didn’t think I’d ever see her again, but I think she came back later, on the other side of the river. Perhaps she’d forgotten something. I don’t know.’

‘You didn’t help when you saw the cows?’

‘I was over here and there was the water between us. Besides, there were loads of them. And it looked dangerous enough
without me adding to the situation. The cows wanted to kill the student that got into trouble. It was a job to get him out. I don’t think any of them were medical students. They were probably too pissed anyway. But then this woman with a dog came along. She knew what she was doing. I think she must be something to do with the farm . . .’

‘So you definitely saw the attack? The student couldn’t have been injured by anything other than the cows?’

‘You mean he might have been attacked first, left lying on the ground and then the cows did the rest? I don’t think so. You’ve got a strange mind for a vicar.’

‘It’s not my only job, I’m afraid.’

‘I didn’t realise times were that hard. But it must be difficult when your faith’s going out of fashion.’

‘It’s not that,’ Sidney replied quickly. ‘I can explain. But, in the meantime, you didn’t by any chance see another couple, by the river’s edge?’

‘I didn’t look too closely but there was plenty of what my friend Emo calls ummagumma going on.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Sex. I think that’s why the girl came over. She must have thought I was some kind of pervert watching them. I’m not, by the way.’

‘I’m sure you’re not.’

‘So I didn’t see much. And I didn’t record any of the kerfuffle. It was people shouting and I didn’t want that. As I said, I like natural sound, stuff we don’t always notice that just carries on no matter what’s happening.’

‘The flow of the world.’

‘That kind of thing.’

The rain had eased off, but an after-drop fell on Roger’s forehead and he wiped it away. ‘It’s hard to see the river unseen beneath the trees, don’t you think?’ he asked. ‘But when you do, it’s like laughter. Perhaps it’s laughing at us?’

After this somewhat disorientating encounter, Sidney tried to call in on Alexander Farley in his rooms at Corpus. A neighbour on the staircase said that he had gone to London with Olivia Randall and wouldn’t be back for a couple of days. This was odd in May Week, with the summer holidays so close, and it turned out to be misinformation. In fact the couple had gone to Ely, having been dispatched by an impatient Helena and were waiting for Sidney on his return. A bemused Hildegard had told them to have a look round the cathedral, visit Cromwell’s house and come back for lemonade and biscuits once she had finished her piano teaching.

Olivia was a tall young woman, bigger-boned than her sister, and appeared to have a slight stoop from trying to make herself look smaller. She was wearing a sleeveless mini tent dress in fused stripes of shocking-pink and orange; while Alexander had a floppy-collared floral shirt and white cotton flares.